SpongeWorthy

Good job Vinny, let Gordon die out there on a bum leg while Allen murders him.

LOL

Good start. Looks like Vinny is trying to get Rose started by moving him without the ball.

As a Bears fan, would it be worth it to put up with Favre-Mania for a couple more months and have him go to Minnesota and ruin their season?

The position coaches are going to be earning their money if these projects work out.

I actually didn't mind the no timeout decision as much as you guys did. The problem is that you don't really see Rose coming unglued until it starts to actually happen. He'd been passive almost all game and then he started pressing big time. Maybe a timeout was warranted but I kind of like the Phil Jackson philosophy of letting them play through it generally speaking. Maybe you don't do that with a rookie point guard. The Hinrich on Marbury thing put me into a rage though.

It was a team effort. And the refs didn't help. He's the PG. There is no team offense without him besides Salmons and Gordon isolations. I'm not mad at him or anything, he's a rookie. It's clear he's confused by what Boston's doing to him defensively. He can't get the dribble drive going and they're not far enough off of him where he's comfortable making jumpers. I did think we didn't do enough pick and roll though. This is an awful, awful post. Derrick Rose dribble drives and then looks to do what every good point guard looks to do when they can't finish which is kick it out to the open man. Unfortunately no one on his team gets open with a man shadowing Gordon at all times and everyone else running around like a bunch of 5 year olds looking forward to an All Sport after the game in their Biddy basketball league. The team has no defensive cohesiveness, takes terrible shots, doesn't get open, doesn't move the ball in the half court set up, is clumsy, is small and very very little of that falls on Derrick Rose's shoulders. This is a bad team with a few individuals who can pull games out of the fire and give people who don't know what they are watching a false sense of faith in the quality of the team. It's pathetic coaching, a weird mix of the roster, unorganized offense and terrible, terrible defense. This is a lot of excuse making for Derrick. If you want to say he's a rookie and is lacking experience in situations like that against a solid defensive team showing him confusing looks then I'll completely agree. He'll get better and eventually he'll punish teams for playing him in such a lopsided fashion. But that night wasn't tonight. He played poorly in the 4th quarter. How is that anything but the objective truth? He played very poorly on both ends of the floor late in the game. The defense has been bad all year so that's nothing really new (by most defensive metrics he is one of the worst defenders in the entire league) but you can't tell me his poor play on the offensive end doesn't fall on his shoulders. It pretty clearly does. He flat out played bad. Edit: The man has 20 turnovers in the last three games. That is unacceptable from any point guard. Rose would be the first one to tell you that.

Heh, if you didn't watch the game or know when that took place you'd say that was an easy flagrant.

Basketball has always been the most exhilarating/agonizing sport for me to watch because the immediacy of the plays makes it easy to hang on everything that goes right or wrong. This series is taking years off of my life, I'm sure of it.

He's a good defender but he faded down the stretch as usual. He has had a good series and hopefully other teams around the league take note and make his value higher for us. That might have had something to do with him bouncing his head off the floor at the end of the 3rd.

The biggest "buh?" moment by Vinny was when he put Kirk on Marbury of all people on the C's final possession in regulation. Of course Pierce just calmy drains one over Rose after Salmons switches off of him. Why would you have Kirk, who played brilliantly and has done an awesome job on Pierce in this series, on Marbury (who passed up a WIDE open 3 on the previous possession)?

Can you name specific examples? I can think of plenty of other non-Rondo fishy officiating (like the Perkins hack on Rose that wasn't called) but nothing too out of the ordinary when it came to Rondo. Rondo is the biggest problem in the series for the Bulls, but it has little to do with the officiating. When the big men don't flash hard enough on the picks, when Derrick stays flat footed and high, and when he clowns the whole defense in transition he's going to hurt us, badly. He's a ridiculous talent. Rondo is getting calls that every guy who breaks down defenders so easily gets (except Rose maybe--and I've complained about the way Derrick's been officiated all year).

I didn't see much out of line with the officiating when it came to Rondo. The problem is that Rose flat out can't guard him.

I guess lost in the post game histrionics is the fact that Noah was in beast mode again. Dude's been playing out of his mind this series.

Because Brad Miller is the better outside shooter. Better FT shooter, too. Yea I understand that, but man had that been Tyrus he woulda taken bout 1 step and hammered it home. No, Tyrus would also be at the FT line shooting two. Do you really think the Celtics were going to let whomever go unimpeded? Tyrus would've dunked that, easily. Rondo barely got there and had to flail at his face just to get a foul on the slowest guy in the league. On the other hand, you can't just assume anyone besides Brad Miller would've been left that wide open with an open lane.

Show of hands, who really expected Brad Miller to make both of those? Honestly, I'd rather he just take the jumper in rhythm then take the two FTs with that much pressure. He doesn't know how slow he is though.

It was a team effort. And the refs didn't help. He's the PG. There is no team offense without him besides Salmons and Gordon isolations. I'm not mad at him or anything, he's a rookie. It's clear he's confused by what Boston's doing to him defensively. He can't get the dribble drive going and they're not far enough off of him where he's comfortable making jumpers. I did think we didn't do enough pick and roll though.

Loss is on Derrick.

Rondo didn't foul him. He flat out tripped over his own foot.

Derrick Rose's defense is appalling.

FINISH THEM.

The Finals are 2-3-2. All other rounds are 2-2-1-1-1.

Kirk's been absolutely brilliant so far.

5 years ago maybe. I forget exactly.

I'd much rather have Hinrich and Rose playing together than Hinrich and Ben. VDN must be worried about Ben's hamstring locking up.